Robert McKinley, Senior Analyst/Editor
Robert McKinley is an analyst of the payments industry on a daily basis for 32 years covering payment cards and payment systems from both the business side and the consumer side. McKinley is the retired founder and chief executive of RAM Research, CardWeb and CardTrak. In his prior position, McKinley has participated in more than 10,000 documented news media interviews, testified as an expert witness in two separate $billion+ U.S. anti-trust trials, testified before the U.S. Congress, assisted the GAO with paymentsIMG_2006 (1).jpeg reports, chaired numerous business conferences and provided C-Suite opinion to a multitude of Fortune 500 companies. In retirement, he has continued developing and funding digital media assets as well as contributing payments related analysis/content to a broad list of online publishers, including CardFlash, CardTrak and CardData. McKinley is also a national certified mentor with the non-profit SCORE organization with a focus on assisting Fintech startups. www.robert-mckinley.com

The four top U.S. payment card networks broke above the $1 trillion purchase dollar volume milestone again in the second quarter. MasterCard led the charge growing 10.1% in U.S. purchase dollar volume to $289 billion.

John Gerspach, Citigroup CEO, is set to present at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference on Monday, September 8, 2014. The presentation is expected to begin at approximately 9:00 AM (Eastern). A live webcast and presentation materials will be available at www.citigroup.com/citi/investor. Citi has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.

RewardsNOW is launching its loyalty programs for three new clients during the first quarter of this year. In partnership with CO-OP Financial Services, RewardsNOW worked with Michigan Community Credit Union, based in Jackson, Michigan, to convert their existing credit and debit card loyalty program to the RewardsNOW platform. In addition to earning points (by using their credit or debit card) from the credit union everywhere they shop, Michigan Community CU’s members earn bonus points from merchants when they shop locally using their Michigan Community CU debit or credit card at retailers included in Shop Main Street, RewardsNOW’s local discount shopping program; or online through ShoppingFLING, RewardsNOW’s online shopping mall. Sterling United Federal Credit Union, based in Evansville, Indiana also launched their Premier Points loyalty program to encourage greater debit card use and reward their most loyal members. The Premier Points program offers Sterling’s members seamless access to use their earned points for a full range of redemption choices. Meanwhile, Tri-State Dental Supply, Inc. based in Monroe, New Jersey, launched their new program, Tri-State Dental Dollars. The Tri-State Dental Dollars program is a loyalty program designed to drive higher levels of purchasing and to reward its best customers utilizing Tri-State’s services. Customers of Tri-State Dental Supply earn 1 point for every dollar they spend on purchases made with Tri-State Dental.

Spindle mobile commerce solutions announced its Developer Integration Tools to its customer base and resellers. The expanded API toolset, which leverages Spindle’s “instant acceptance” merchant boarding process, is accessible through Spindle’s website at:developers.spindle.com. The site will also include tools from Spindle partners such as Slim CD, a payment processing gateway provider based in Coral Springs, Florida. The launch of this platform advances Spindle’s mobile commerce portfolio into fast-growing market segments where developers are looking to combine payment capabilities with the simplicity of instant boarding for their customers and users.This adds transaction processing capabilities to online, mobile and brick-and-mortar merchant software solutions.

Billtrust has hired Tom Iler as Chief Information Officer and Paul Wakolbinger as Senior Vice President of Sales.Iler, most recently at New York digital technology company Vibrant Media where he was Chief Technology Officer, has over 15 years of C-level technology experience. He has served in CTO and CIO positions at companies of all sizes from successful startups to large public corporations. In addition to Vibrant Media, Iler has held executive posts at Ascend One, AOL and Advertising.com. Wakolbinger, with more than 20 years’ experience as a software sales and sales management executive, comes to Billtrust from SunGard Corporate Liquidity, a division of SunGard Financial Systems, where he was Senior VP of Sales, Receivable Solutions. Wakolbinger’s specialty is building sales teams that consistently exceed sales quotas; he has extensive experience in selling application software as well as SaaS and managed-service offerings.

PayPal now lets users order ahead and pay for goods and services at 1500 brick and mortar locations through its latest partnership with Rabobank-backed MyOrder MyOrder. The integration with PayPal enables users to order and pay for food or drinks ahead of arriving at a cafe; to pay at the table in a restaurant without calling over the waiter, or pay for parking without searching for the closest meter. The online payments outfit has been steadily expanding its business to the high street and through the mobile device. Last year, of the $180 billion of payments processed by PayPal, $27 billion were made from a smartphone or tablet, up 99% on the previous year. Alongside apps for iOS and Android devices, PayPal last week added support for Amazon’s new Fire phone, available for download from the Amazon app store.

WorldRemit is introducing the ability to send money to Thailand. The upgrade to WorldRemit’s Thai service enables workers living overseas to send money back home without the need for an additional foreign exchange transaction at the receiving bank.International remittances are an important contributor to the economy of Thailand, with an estimated US $5.5 billion being received in 2013, according to the World Bank. The amount of money received from overseas by people in Thailand has seen an average increase of 25% per year, compared to an annual increase of just 5% between 2004 and 2008.

Bill Me Later Is Now PayPal Credit, PayPal Working Capital Exceeds $150 Million and Both are Going Global – Gary Marino, SVP, Global Financial Services & North America. Since the pilot program launched last September, more than 20,000 businesses have collectively borrowed more than $150 million in PayPal Working Capital business loans through our lending partner, WebBank. The program is also expanding to the UK and Australia to fuel business growth. Businesses in these countries will have access to capital in minutes once they apply and are approved through a simple online interface. PayPal Working Capital allows these businesses to repay with a share of their sales they choose, and don’t repay on days they don’t have sales. Because the program uses a business’s sales history, there iis no credit check or extensive documentation required. The loan charges a single, affordable fixed fee instead of periodic interest so businesses know the cost of the loan up front. It’s that simple.

Evolving Credit Landscape

Offering these products more broadly is a sign of the power that credit brings to both merchants and consumers. Merchants can leverage credit as a tool to secure capital and grow their businesses. Additionally, they can offer credit with flexible payments options for their customers and immediate sales, while consumers experience freedom of choice when buying what they want – when they want it. We recognize this value isn’t limited to our US customers, so we are going global.

[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”0″ ihc_mb_template=”1″] Ingenico Group announced its 1H/14 revenue of €703 million is up 20% from the year ago figure. Meanwhile, net income of €75 million is up 53% while organic growth was up between 14 and 16%. This is thanks in great part to a multi-local strategy, namely in emerging markets such as…

PayByPhone announced its mobile parking payment app is available in the Amazon Appstore for Amazon’s new Fire phone, as well as Kindle Fire devices. PayByPhone’s parking meter stickers feature a passive electronic chip that stores information such as the meter number. Users simply wave or tap their NFC-enabled phones over the sticker on the meter to automatically launch the PayByPhone app. The mobile payment system recognizes the user and identifies the exact parking location. The PayByPhone app is the simple, secure, and convenient way to pay for your parking in cities such as Seattle, San Francisco, Miami, Vancouver, London, Paris and more. PayByPhone allows drivers to charge their parking to a credit card, eliminating the need for cash at the parking meter. Features such as text message reminders before time expires, and adding more parking time from the app (within the allowable restrictions) greatly reduce the chance of a parking violation.

Visa’s CEMEA region, dominated by prepaid payment cards, jumped 27% in the second quarter driven by cash advance volume. Visa has an estimated 307 million cards-in-force (CIF) currently in the CEMEA region, compared to 289 million in Q2/13. The total number of accounts rose to an estimated 306 million in Q2/14, compared to 291 million for Q2/13.